Francis and the Beast Outside my Window

Something startles me awake in the middle of the night.  I am snuggled down deep in my new warm fleece sheets.  I picked the dark blue ones with big white snowflakes on them that reminded me of soft fluffy snowfalls.  There is no picturesque winter wonderland outside my window tonight, but something sinister and that sounds like a living thing howling and clawing at my tiny cottage in the dark.  I reach out my and touch the wall behind my bed and am shocked at how cold it feels.  The temperature has dropped to 20 degrees below zero, and I am grateful for the warmth of my bed and Baxter’s soft body pressed up against my side. I think of how fragile we are and how quickly the uncaring beast outside could freeze us in our tracks if we dared to venture out. 

I burrow deeper into my nest and try to go back to sleep, but the sound of the beast haunts me as I think of all the creatures huddled in its grip. How will the little birds with their tiny beating hearts survive? What will the gentle deer find to eat in the frozen snow covered wasteland?  Who will care for all of the vulnerable creatures in the path of this monster? Will the farmers be kind like Jon and Maria and give warm shelter to their barn cats?

Then like a small candle in the cold dark recesses of my mind, I remember a story I heard as a child, a story of a gentle and holy man who lived long ago and cared for all of the creatures of the forest and birds of the air.  The story tells of how they gathered around him and were not fearful because of his great love and kindness.  St. Francis of Assisi taught that we are all connected to the One Divine Spirit.  He is believed to be the patron saint and protector of the animals.

It’s been many years since I thought of these long ago stories from my Catholic upbringing.  My search for a personal God has taken me in many directions and my spirituality is a private blend of all the things that I have read and experienced since then.  But tonight it feels comforting and right to think of St. Francis and how love conquers fear.  So, I ask his spirit to protect the deer and the birds huddling in the cold, the barn cats and squirrels and all of the creatures struggling to survive this long cold and fearsome night.  I see his gentle face as I drift back to sleep in my warm, safe bed.

Nightmare on Ice

My dream of living on Golden Lake came true in 1987.  My husband and I bought a 100 year old Victorian cottage that was a bargain in those days because it needed lots of work.  We were young, full of energy and so very excited.  Our 3 sons and daughter ranged from ages 8 to 18 and we moved to the lake in the spring.  That first summer was filled with the excitement of swimming, boating, fishing and lakeside bonfires.  Our first winter at the lake was equally as fun.  The boys and their friends maintained a huge ice rink in front of our house for frequent and spirited hockey games.   Life was good and the kids jokingly called living at the lake, Permavacation. 

The second winter the ice froze clear as glass and the weather co-operated by staying dry with no snow.  We skated on ice so transparent and smooth that it felt like floating.  At night when the moon was full, we could see our shadows on the bottom of the lake as we glided along. 

We had talked a lot about safety on the ice with our children.  Our shoreline was an excellent and safe spot for skating because it was sandy and shallow.  But across the lake, it was very deep and there were some springs that kept areas of the lake open longer than the rest.  They knew that it was strictly forbidden to go there. 

Our son, Chris was 14 that second winter.  He was always a free thinker and marched to the beat of a different drummer.  He was a big, strong boy and spent much of his time playing hockey on our shoreline with his brothers and his friends.  Being a stay at home mom, I could keep my eye on the group of boys that always gathered at our house while providing hot chocolate and snacks.  As I said, life was very good!

It was on a cold, sunny and windy day that our happy life almost came to an end.  The details of that day 24 years ago remain burned in my mind as clear as if they had happened yesterday.  My husband and I had decided to go for a quick lunch at small town café about 3 miles away.  We were gone for about an hour leaving Chris at home. 

I remember walking into our home when we returned and feeling an instant sense of dread.  My husband must have felt it also, because we walked straight through the house to the lakeside door and looked out across the lake.  What we saw was a nightmare beginning to unfold.  Chris was skating across the lake with one of his friends……right towards the open water about 300 yards away.  We ran out into the front yard and screamed his name over and over as loud as we could, but the wind was blowing at us, and he never heard our cries.  Then we saw him disappear into the open hole.  His friend fell down on the ice and lay their crying.

There really are no words to adequately describe my thoughts and feelings in that moment.  Time was suspended and everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.  On some level I knew that the chances of us reaching him all the way across the lake in time were slim, and what we would do when we got there was uncertain.  We did have a ladder and a rope on the shore because my husband a former eagle scout, had insisted on it.  He grabbed the ladder while I grabbed the robe, and we started to run.  My feet clad only in loafers kept slipping on the glassy ice and made it difficult to make progress.  As we ran we never took our eyes off of Chris.  We saw him try over and over to pull himself out of the water on the edge of the ice, but it kept breaking as he fell back in again. 

I didn’t know then that he had skated near the opening in the ice and slid his hockey stick across the surface to scare up the flock of geese resting there.  It had landed in the water and not wanting to leave it, he had come back to the house to get a long wooden pole with a hook on it, which we used to trim tree branches.  When he approached the hole again to try and hook his hockey stick, the ice just gave way under him. 

We had only made it about halfway across the lake when he struggled once again to get out.  Somehow he had the presence of mind to hold his hockey stick and the long pole in both hands and lay it on the ice in front of him to distribute his weight as he tried one more time to pull himself out of the water.  By some incredible miracle, it worked! 

We were still running towards him as he came skating our way.  The enormous flood of emotions that I experienced in that moment, were a combinations of intense joy, red hot anger, relief, fear and gratitude all at the same time.  I literally did not know what to do with myself.  Chris skated towards me dripping wet and freezing cold but alive and said as he skated past,  ”Mom……………..please don’t say a word.” 

We turned around and walked back to across the lake to the house.  I was shaking so badly, my legs could barely hold me up.  By the time my husband and I walked into the house, Chris was already in the shower attempting to warm up.  I remember the three of us sitting in the living room afterwards and just looking at each other.  As the unstoppable tears rolled down my face, it seemed that none of us could wrap our minds around what had just happened.  Words were inadequate.  I am sure that we must have said something, but the experience itself was lesson enough.  None of us slept that long night as we lay in our beds in the dark and listened to the eerie sounds of the ice as it cracked and boomed outside in the cold and the tape of the day’s events played over and over in our minds. 

Sometimes I think of how different my life would be today if Chris had not made it out alive.  I think of what I would have done if he had still been in the water when we got there.  Perhaps we would have died trying to save him.  A parent’s love is that enormous.  I think it is a miracle that he was able to save himself, but I am also a strong believer in unseen angels. Most of all, I think of my love and gratitude for him and for all of my children which is immeasurable. 

Chris is 38 years old now and still marches to a different drummer.  He and I fought to save Golden Lake and its delicate environment this past year, and he is now doing great work that he loves in the world of Vision Science at Ohio State University. 

The Magic Christmas Tree

Yesterday, I hauled my little Christmas tree up from the basement and decided to trim it. I haven’t had a large tree for a few years because I don’t have room in my little cottage. I have always liked putting up my tree early because December is a special month to me.  My birthday, my wedding anniversary and Christmas all fall in December.   

This year I was feeling frustrated because I plugged the tree in and part of a light strand refused to work .  I have never had the patience to figure out why a strand of lights isn’t working, so I decided to take all of them off and buy a couple of new ones.  It took two hours to unwind all of the tangled wires.  By the time I finished I was disheartened and really wondering why I bothered to put up a tree at all.  I don’t have holiday gatherings anymore because the family has grown too large to have all of them at my cottage, so my children host them now.  Not many people really get to see my decorations anyway.  I had forgotten the point of it, but I had already started and grudgingly decided to finish.  Once again, the magic begins.

As I unwrap each ornament and place it on the little tree, the memories come flooding back.  Time compresses.  All of the years and all of love are contained in that moment.  I am a small child in my blue dress hiding with excitement in the little knotty pine den of our home with my brother.  We can hear Santa stomping around in our living room leaving gifts and never guess that it is our grandpa.

Then I am a young woman singing my heart out with my dear husband in the choir at that long ago lovely church on Christmas Eve.  The beauty of those soaring voices brings me to tears.  In this perfect time warp, my husband and I never lose sight of the importance of our love. We don’t allow the years to diminish our ability to understand what really matters.

I see my children at all ages, their happy faces glowing by the lights of so many Christmas trees, opening gifts and sharing holiday feasts and handmade cookies in candlelit rooms filled with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.  I play Christmas carols on the piano while my sweet family sings and for those few moments all is so very perfect in my world.  

The snow is softly falling deep and silent outside our window and we see Santa walk across the front yard in the moonlight.  He slowly leans over and leaves a big bag of candy and gifts on the ground.  He waves through the window and trudges on out of sight.  My little children are thrilled beyond belief to have seen him.  Then suddenly Santa is there in my oldest son’s living room and my grandchildren are dancing around him with excitement and I am Nana to 5 grandchildren.

My dear mom, dad and brother all long gone, are here with me again.  They are meeting my grandchildren and I am child, mother and grandmother, all at the same time.  All of my beloved dogs are also there.  Belle, Kenya, Raven and Baxter are all happily unwrapping a present with their teeth that they each hold in their paws as they spread bits of paper on the floor. 

All of the reasons for sadness and misunderstanding over all of the many years have been forgotten and the room glows with love as my family and extended family of all ages and all times are impossibly here together for one magical moment. 

I hang the ornaments on the tree as they gather around me.  Ornaments my children made for me when they were small, hang next to the ones my grandchildren painted last year.  There are several special ornaments from old friends and neighbors who came and went in my life and as I look up, I see that they are here as well.  I don’t know how this little cottage can contain all of these people, places, years and love, but somehow for a brief moment in time.  It does.  And that is the very real magic of my little Christmas tree.


This happens to be my favorite Christmas song for trimming my tree.  Enjoy, Dear Friends!

Nameless Faces

Last fall I received and email from a man in Florida who wanted me to paint a series of women's faces for him.  He asked me to look through my stash of reference photos and come up with some faces that he might like.  He had previously contacted me and purchased an original painting that I had for sale on Fine Art America.  It is a very popular site for artists to download images of their artwork in order for people to purchase prints and originals.  He seemed to know my artwork well and suggested that I do a close up of a face that I had done in a previous painting that he had seen on my webpage.

 

Enigma

I thought it was a little odd that someone would want a collection of faces of people they didn’t know, but he sent me the full amount of money for each painting in advance, plus extra for shipping.  I was happy to have the commissions.

After the first face was finished and sent, he seemed frustrated that I didn’t have any other faces that he liked in my collection of photographs.  Not wanting to lose another commission, I found a stock photo site on the internet and directed him to look at it.  He loved the site and made a long list of the faces he found interesting.  It was an odd assortment of ordinary to beautiful women.  He had made an orderly list of the ones he wanted and which one I was to start with. 

Amber

Phil was a retired actor and school teacher in his 70’s.  He shared that he had been married briefly and unhappily many years ago.  He had spent some time in the theater, but had felt that he was not good enough to make a career out of it.  So for many years, he had taught acting and english.  He confessed that his life had become very limited because of his age and health but that he loved collecting art.  He felt that it was all he had to look forward to, since he had no children, no close relatives and rarely left the house.  He seemed to have given up on life in many ways.

I understood his love of faces because of his involvement in the theater, and we collaborated over the winter as I painted each one and sent it to him.  Some of them I really liked and others not as much, but I put everything I had into each painting, because I could feel that it brought him some happiness.  I made up names for each of them because it felt wrong to send them out into the world without some identity.

Grandma's Hat

We spoke on the phone several times and emailed each other often to discuss the next painting and just to talk about life.  I found him to be interesting and intelligent and kept nudging him to find something that he could do to reawaken his interest in life.  Phil and I both loved to read, and he often sent me books that he had finished and thought I would enjoy.  I made suggestions of activities that I thought he might enjoy, but nothing seemed to interest him except the anticipation of a new painting.  I knew eventually he would run out of wall space.

After a winter of working together with Phil on 10 paintings, our project came to an end.  I had tried to renew his enthusiasm in life with my artwork and encouragement.  He was a lonely man and strongly needed to connect more with people, but that had to be his decision.

Several months passed before his next email.  He was extremely excited that he had decided to try something that had been a passion of his many years ago.  He had gone to an archery range and found that he could still do it.  Over the next several months I received emails that sounded fun and full of life from him as he ordered all new archery equipment and got better and stronger at something he loved. 

The latest email from Phil told me how much fun he was having getting up early every morning and going to the archery range and how well he was doing.  I am happy for him and his renewed interest in life.  Now he has some real faces in his world that have names and it makes me smile.